SebenTripod Vibration Suppression Pads/Dampers for Telescope TAVP1

These tripod pads are a neat solution to get round the issue of the tripod legs digging into the floor allowing me to leave my astronomy telescope and tripod assembled together after a session and protect my utility room floor from damage. Perfect really. I don’t use them outside as anti-vibration pads so I can’t really comment on that.

Having just spent a couple of hours viewing clear skies through a Celestron NexStar 6SE telescope I can confirm that these Seben tripod pads made a worthwhile improvement to my viewing experience. Using the pads under the tripod legs for the first time (on a concrete service) there was a noticeable improvement in resolution and a considerable reduction in the time taken for the telescope to 'settle' (ie stop wobbling!) after adjusting fine focus. I saw more detail when viewing Jupiter and there was clearer definition of the planet as well as the Orion Nebula, which are two of my favourite observation choices during January. I've also placed one of the pads underneath a monopod I use to support a pair of binoculars and can confirm that the pad definitely improved resolution and image quality when viewing bright stars. I had previously thought my binoculars were slightly out collimation, but having used one of the pads I realise that this isn't the case!At this price, they are well worthwhile trying out and even a 'hard to convince' customer like me has to believe the evidence of his own eyes! Thoroughly recommended!

Well...I'm glad I didn't pay the £80 for Celestron's offering. I don't know why, but I expected these things to be made out of rubber or foam..but anyways they are quite hard and made of some kind of composite material, with the bottom having 3 rounded contact points to help isolate the Tripod leg from the floor/ or ground surface. The Red insert rings or whatever they are, seem slightly uneven from the cosmetic point of view, but this doesn't detract form the product's function I suppose.How much of an improvement in Telescope vibration? To be honest I'm just not certain. I would say it helps somewhat..

These were a bit smaller and less soft than I had expected. However, turns out that they are indeed perfect for the job - in reality they need to be reasonably rigid as they carry an awful lot of weight. They do seem to do a good job of damping down vibration and help to spread the load (stopping the tripod sinking into soft ground so much). Don't know why the likes of Celestron and Meade don't build this sort of thing into there bigger tripods as standard. Only minor gripe is that the indentation could do with being slightly deeper so as to provide a better footing for the tripod foot.Only used them a few times so far but the effect was immediately noticeable when focusing with BackyardEOS. Minor jolts caused by walking around the mount settled down extremely fast.

There are mixed reviews on the astronomy forums of the effectiveness of this type of product but I decided to give them a go. I purchased them mainly to reduce the vibration duration on my Celestron 4SE and they worked very well. The Celestron 4SE is not blessed with a very stable tripod/mount and these dampen the inevitable vibrations very effectively.I also tried them with my Celestron CPC800 and they had little or no noticeable effect. This is not surprising as this scope has a very stable mount and vibrations if any dampen very quickly in any case.These will improve the damping of vibrations and hence improves the usability of scopes. The vibrations will still be present and there is no substitute for a stable well engineered mount in the first instance.

I bought these to use with my Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT.With a 1500mm focal length, this telescope is highly susceptible to vibration. Even someone walking softly near it can case the image shake.These most definitely help! Footstep induced image shake is drastically reduced and it then settles down far faster than before. It also settles far quicker following focusing and other adjustments.They are also great for use on soft ground/grass where then stop the tripod legs from sinking into the ground.They are far stiffer, firmer and heavier than I was expecting, infact they feel almost solid, but they most definitely work very well indeed!Most definitely recommended!

After first using the tripod directly on wooden-decking, I found that the wind and focusing with high magnification viewfinders, plus little taps and knocks which happen when viewing, took quite a few seconds to settle the image down. These are the answer. The image stabilises in a second which is a great improvement.When it is really useful to me is when I'm long exposure imaging on a breezy night. I can't do it without them.These are also great value for money when compared with another major telescope manufactures product which I'm sure are exactly the same pads. Less than half the price! Well worth the money and highly recommended.

I don't know if they stop vibrations but they do prevent damage to my floor caused by the tripod! They are the accessory to have if you run out of ideas. They are solid and look good.